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Hate To Be A Party Pooper...
May. 12th, 2010 07:44 pmIt would be a lot easier to appreciate all of the festivities surrounding TESB's 30th anniversary if I were completely confident the 30th anniversaries of the subsequent SW films will be celebrated accordingly. Call me a pessimist, but somehow I just don't see the big to-dos on starwars.com, in every SW-related media from the t.v. shows to magazines to whatever, charity screenings, and even SW's most reclusive creatures to appear for--yikes--Q&A sessions happening for ROTJ. I really hope they prove me wrong. We'll see in 2013.
While ANH is the firstborn, TESB has reached mythic and nearly hagiographic status. It's the Marcia Brady of the Saga. In fact, I just read something a week or so ago that claims it is the best sequel evah, even better than the long-praised Godfather II. Don't get me wrong. There are a lot of things to love about TESB and I will get to all of that when I post my 30th anniversary retrospective on May 21. But have you ever had the uncomfortable experience of listening to a parent wax poetic about how one child is so smart, so pretty, so handsome, so popular, etc. but has little or no praise for that parent's other children? That's how it feels to listen to or read all of this stuff sometimes.
A few years ago, I posted elsewhere about keeping TESB in perspective and I got some "gasp, how can you say that" type of responses. One guy said something along the lines of, "You weren't there." Yes, I certainly was "there." I first saw TESB on May 27, 1980 and I recall that few people ran out of the theater proclaiming it the greatest sequel ever. Certainly a lot of people loved it but a much about it was, well, unexpected. I'll get to that in my May 21 post. It took a long time, in the context of seeing the whole first trilogy, for audiences to fully appreciate it. But it goes to show you how it's become groupthink to believe nothing less than TESB was the last truly worthwhile SW film and the best of the whole series.
Not only am I concerned about how this skewed view of TESB has diminished appreciation for the other SW films, I'm concerned that ultimately it will turn and bite TESB in the butt. How long will it be before fashion dictates TESB is "overrated," then it's just as trashy as the rest of those $@$#@# movies that ruined cinema forever?
While ANH is the firstborn, TESB has reached mythic and nearly hagiographic status. It's the Marcia Brady of the Saga. In fact, I just read something a week or so ago that claims it is the best sequel evah, even better than the long-praised Godfather II. Don't get me wrong. There are a lot of things to love about TESB and I will get to all of that when I post my 30th anniversary retrospective on May 21. But have you ever had the uncomfortable experience of listening to a parent wax poetic about how one child is so smart, so pretty, so handsome, so popular, etc. but has little or no praise for that parent's other children? That's how it feels to listen to or read all of this stuff sometimes.
A few years ago, I posted elsewhere about keeping TESB in perspective and I got some "gasp, how can you say that" type of responses. One guy said something along the lines of, "You weren't there." Yes, I certainly was "there." I first saw TESB on May 27, 1980 and I recall that few people ran out of the theater proclaiming it the greatest sequel ever. Certainly a lot of people loved it but a much about it was, well, unexpected. I'll get to that in my May 21 post. It took a long time, in the context of seeing the whole first trilogy, for audiences to fully appreciate it. But it goes to show you how it's become groupthink to believe nothing less than TESB was the last truly worthwhile SW film and the best of the whole series.
Not only am I concerned about how this skewed view of TESB has diminished appreciation for the other SW films, I'm concerned that ultimately it will turn and bite TESB in the butt. How long will it be before fashion dictates TESB is "overrated," then it's just as trashy as the rest of those $@$#@# movies that ruined cinema forever?
